WHY

Out of all the interviews I’ve done with up-and-coming artists over the years, the name that’s most consistently come up as a musical inspiration is Yoni Wolf, the mastermind behind WHY?. It’s not exactly a surprise — he strikes a balance between art and pop that’s consistently appealing — but it had been a while … More »

They say that youth is wasted on the young, but don’t try telling that to the Ophelias. Not only do they craft atypical art-pop that is mature beyond their age, but they are making the most of their formative bloom years by grabbing life by the horns and whipping-up tunes that would jawdrop their elders. On July 13, the Ophelias — Micaela Adams (percussion), Andrea Gutmann Fuentes (violin), Spencer Peppet (guitar/lyrics), and Grace Weir (bass) — will release their second album Almost on Joyful Noise Recordings.

Produced by WHY’sYoni Wolf, Almost is chockablock full of the kinds of luscious auditory experiences that will have you grinning from lobe to lobe regardless of your age. Formed while still in high school, the four wanted to escape the constricting tokenism of being “the girl” in their previous groups. “In the past we had all kind of been the ‘girl in the band,’ in some capacity,” says Peppet. “Having a band of all women eradicates that possibility logistically, but also makes for a really creative environment without the patronization that often comes along with being the ‘girl in the band.’”

2018 looks to be a banner year for the Ophelias, so chug from the fountain of youthful enthusiasm and check out the zestful interplay of the band’s two latest singles off Almost: the Joe Shaffer-directed animated lyric-scroll for “Fog” and the album cover still life of “General Electric” below. All the recognized formats (including a 300 hand-numbered limited strawberry creammmsicle swirl vinyl) can be pre-ordered here or via the band’s Bandcamp. On the live front, the Ophelias will open a fistful of dates for the Low Anthem in July (find those below the choons).

Full disclosure: I may have a slight preference for the preceding Elephant Eyelash — but that obviously doesn’t dilute Alopecia’s status as a groundbreaking album. Yoni Wolf and co.’s landmark album undoubtedly served as an introduction to WHY? for many when it was first released back in those carefree days of 2008. Listeners were almost universally enamored by the psych-folk/song-rap genre amalgam — as well as by Wolf’s candid/somewhat fatalistic rhyming about fame, relationships, mortality, and survival.

It might be in keeping with the survival theme, then, that we’re now talking about celebrating Alopecia’s 10-year anniversary. (10 years, and the album lives on by virtue of music’s immortality!) And WHY? is doing more than is necessary to commemorate the occasion by announcing not onlyabout a zillion different Alopecia reissues (out August 17 on Joyful Noise), but also an international tour where the band will perform the album in its entirety at each of the shows.

What’s more, they’ve just shared a remix of the track “Good Friday” by a couple of hermetic guys you might remember called Boards of Canada, which you can find below before the full list of tour dates. (Hell, you know Alopecia is something special if you can get those two private citizens to emerge from their self-imposed musical hideout!)

Pre-order the reissues of Alopeciahere. Note that the bonus 7” includes both the aforementioned remix and a Dntel remix of the track “By Torpedo Or Crohn’s.”

2017 was quite the year, and we couldn’t have gotten through it without these songs.

Songs are like friends for us. When we hear a song that we love at The Wild Honey Pie, it becomes an integral part of our lives. I remember having contests in the office to see who could transcribe the lyrics to “Mary” by Big Thief first, or who could belt out “Don’t Kill My Vibe” bySigrid the hardest. These songs have been the soundtrack of so many changes in our lives, and have given us those truly special moments of realizing that we are not alone.

Though it is pretty much impossible to fully dive into every song that came out this year and hold them up against one another, these are, quite simply, the ones that have found their way into our lives and have not left. These are our favorites of 2017 – the ones that have gotten us through the hardest times, and gave us a little bit of hope through it all.

Please let us know if we missed any of your favorites, and click here for our Top 30 Albums of 2017!

In 2014, WHY?’s Yoni Wolf recorded a song with Lorde. The collaboration came about after someone pointed out lyrical similarities between Pure Heroine’s “Still Sane” and WHY?’s “By Torpedo Or Crohn’s” (the line “Only bad people live to see their likeness set in stone”), and Lorde admitted to being … More »

A few months after I started The Wild Honey Pie in 2009, I was tasked with creating our first ever year in review list. This was no small task for me and something I took the ultimate pride in compiling, knowing that our small readership would be curious to know which albums and songs truly captivating me throughout the year. Nearly eight years downs the road there are many albums from this list I still frequently spin, but none more than Eskimo Snow from Oakland band WHY?. For this reason and so many others it was a euphoric experience for me to have the opportunity to collaborate with the band on our latest Buzzsession, filmed in Brooklyn at Figure 8 Recording. Their new album Moh Lhean, released earlier this year, is as stunning as albums come and translated beautifully live in this session.

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Don’t know about you, but WHY? frontman Yoni “The Wolf” Wolf and his roving hip-pop band of… well, fellow-wolves, I guess — are not about to take next 1,000,000 years or so lying down while Mother Nature just has her way with them. No way. The name of the game is “Proactive Evolution.”

Well, at least that’s the name of the new single from Wolf & co’s forthcoming (and sixth) new album, Moh Lhean, which is out March 3 on Joyful Noise. NOT AT ALL COINCIDENTALLY, the album is the band’s first in 1,000,000 years (okay, 5 years) and also marks “the first fully home-recorded WHY? album since the project’s 2003 debut,” a.k.a. back when recording yourself at home was a risky idea instead of a no-brainer. Co-produced by Yoni along with his brother Josiah, it features all the somber-voiced, deadpan surrealism and skittering OCD ear-candy that you need to escape the (totally inescapable) horrors of 2017.

Pre-order that momentary relief for yourself right now on any decadent combination of vinyl, CD, and digital iterations, and check out the “lyric video” for the “Proactive Evolution” down below. And when you’re done with that, check out the dates that the band is embarking upon in March and April. (No, seriously. Check them out. And maybe shoot me a congratulatory email; there’s like 1,000,000 of them, and I spent like 1,000,000 years formatting them.)

Moh Lhean tracklist:

01. This Ole King
02. Proactive Evolution
03. Easy
04. January February March
05. One Mississippi
06. The Longing Is All
07. George Washington
08. The Water
09. Consequence of Nonaction
10. The Barely Blur

Yoni Wolf’s splintered indie pop project WHY? are coming back after a four-year hiatus since 2012’s Mumps, Etc. Their forthcoming full-length is entitled Moh Lhean, and it’s due in early March. This album is the first fully home-recorded WHY? album since the their 2003 debut, and its title shares the name of Wolf’s home … More »